Peter Staley was working on Wall Street when one day he was handed a flyer about a

quote, massive AIDS demonstration taking place in front of the Trinity Church, just a block away.

The flyer listed demands targeting the government, the Food and Drug Administration, President Reagan.

This was March 24, 1987, the very first demonstration that Act Up carried out.

Now, Peter knew that he was living with HIV at this point, knew that something big needed to be done. So he went to the very next meeting, joined the group, and by that next March, a year later,

he'd quit his job in order to devote every hour that he had to act up.

And you knew that we were going to change the world. We didn't know in what way. We didn't

know if we'd succeed, but we knew we were going to be out there making a difference for the next few years.

Now, we often hear stories about the pain and trauma of these years, and it was a harrowing time,

so that makes sense. But one of those things that I appreciate about Peter Staley in his memoir,

never silent, is that Peter doesn't shy away from also

talking about the joy that existed during this time.

They went out, they partied, they created community, they had sex.

He describes act up as the most sex-positive movement in American history.

And this was a crucial component to their work.

There's no way we could have gotten through the tragedy that was those years, the emotional

damage that we were accruing, the PTSD that we eventually all suffered.

There's no way we would have gotten through that without a heavy dose of

sex, love, humor, community. It was a surreal existence.

So today we talk about all of that, about how much has changed for those living with HIV,

and what is still left to be done. Because as we know,

HIV is not something that only existed in the past. An estimated 700,000 people have died in the

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